After a great deal of thought, I have decided to change the way we allow people to register on Mizozo. While there are a few reasons for this, the predominant one is the way in which SEO companies are utilizing our free service.
Let me be clear on one thing, nothing is changing within the site for any of our already registered, non SEO members. The site will function exactly the same, and will continue to do so until our eventual transition to WordPress. The WordPress transition will likely change much within Mizozo, but that will be discussed another day. Those who wish to register as publishers on Mizozo will now need to provide a little more information in order for their accounts to be created and we will not be registering everyone, we plan to be significantly more selective.
Why is this happening?
I am of the opinion that Mizozo must be a free platform, allowing all those who wish to contribute to do so virtually without restriction (except for Porn, Spam and Hate). Over the last year, an incredibly large number of SEO companies began registering on the site. In the last 4 months alone we have had over 50 new SEO users, but I suspect that there are probably only 3 or 4 actual individuals simply making numerous accounts. This wouldn’t be a problem if the content was at least decent.
To compound the problem, the companies hiring these SEO companies have begun harassing me to take down the articles pointing to their site, adding to my workload. It seems that some of them aren’t fond of the writing style, which makes sense, but more importantly Google has changed the way it handles links, making these types of link building articles more a penalty for the sites than a benefit, something I think is a great move.
In short, these SEO companies have forced me to rethink the way I handle new registrants. So, from this day forward all new applicants will need to submit a bit of personal information on who they are and why they want to contribute articles to Mizozo. Now, this personal information doesn’t actually need to be real, you can make up whatever you want, but one thing that will need to be real is some form of Social presence. This could be a Facebook account, Twitter, Reddit, or whatever, but the accounts must be at least 6 months in existence. Also, all applications submitted to Mizozo will become public. I will be creating a new spreadsheet in Google Docs which will detail all applications and their approval status. This document will be made public, with a link on Mizozo.com and a second link here on the blog.
I will be updating our Registration Information page will more specific instructions on what will be expected of all applicants, but in short it will be at least the following:
- Full Name
- Website (Optional)
- Icon or Image (Optional)
- List of Social Networks at least 6 months old
- Up to two previously posted articles
- A little about yourself
- Why you want to write for Mizozo
- Do you have SEO intentions (crucial)
Upon receiving an application, I will immediately update the public spreadsheet and begin looking it over. Once a decision is made, the row in the spreadsheet will be updated and the applicant will be notified.
While the note about yourself and reason for writing isn’t all that important, and neither are the links to previous work, the social network is key. This will be checked, and if the user is less than 6 months old they will not be eligible. The hope is that this will eliminate SEO companies from simply creating a Facebook account for the sole purpose of registering on Mizozo. Also, an established user will give us a sense of who the person is, meaning is the applicant a real user or just someone posing. Hopefully, this will stem the incessant SEO registrants, and keep the companies hiring them from contacting me with requests to remove old posts. That last note, do you have any intention to write SEO articles, is also crucial. I have no problem with SEO publishers, they will simply be reviewed more stringently. If they intend to promote their own sites, great, I am all for it. If they are an SEO company that writes decent content, great. If they intend to place sponsored links ‘occasionally’ in their posts, also great. However, if their sole intent is to write SEO articles for various clients and their articles are crap, they will be denied.
Another interesting note is that I have tried to identify existing SEO users within the system. While there is no physical mark anywhere on a user’s account on whether or not they have been labeled SEO, one easy way to tell is to post a new story. If their new article goes to the Homepage’s Recent Story List, they are fine. If they don’t see it there, they should check the SEO Page. If they are there, they are SEO. Now, in order to reduce the number of active SEO users on the site, one other change will be implemented. In 3 months a culling of users will occur. All users that haven’t logged into their account in at least 6 months will be deactivated. I will take a look at the articles posted by the user before deactivation, and if I feel that their articles are halfway decent I will not deactivate the user, but if they write crap they’re gone.
Again, this will not affect any of the real writers on Mizozo in the least, nor will it hinder any new ones from joining. We encourage people to register on Mizozo to publish their content, and will do our best to help promote it. If you are looking for a place to post your opinion on global matters, share your latest internet finds, or just look around for great content, Mizozo is your place.
Join Mizozo, Join the Revolution!